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<title>Introduction to Zig</title>
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<header id="title-block-header" class="quarto-title-block default">
<div class="quarto-title">
<h1 class="title">Introduction to Zig</h1>
<p class="subtitle lead">a project-based book</p>
</div>



<div class="quarto-title-meta">

    <div>
    <div class="quarto-title-meta-heading">Author</div>
    <div class="quarto-title-meta-contents">
             <p>Pedro Duarte Faria </p>
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    <div class="quarto-title-meta-heading">Published</div>
    <div class="quarto-title-meta-contents">
      <p class="date">December 5, 2025</p>
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</header>



<section id="welcome" class="level1 unnumbered">
<h1 class="unnumbered">Welcome</h1><p><img src="Cover/cover-artv3.png" title="Introduction to Zig" class="quarto-cover-image nolightbox img-fluid"></p>
<p>Welcome! This is the initial page for the “Open Access” HTML version of the book “Introduction to Zig: a project-based book”, written by <a href="https://pedro-faria.netlify.app/">Pedro Duarte Faria</a>. This is an open book that provides an introduction to the <a href="https://ziglang.org/">Zig programming language</a>, which is a new general-purpose, and low-level language for building robust and optimal software.</p>
<section id="support-the-project" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="support-the-project">Support the project!</h2>
<p>If you like this project, and you want to support it, you can buy a PDF, eBook or a physical copy of the book, either at Amazon, or at Leanpub:</p>
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<h3 class="anchored" data-anchor-id="sending-donations-directly">Sending donations directly</h3>
<p>You can also donate some amount directly to the author of the project via:</p>
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<li>PayPal Donation.</li>
<li>Revolut.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are good ways to support directly the author of the project, which helps to foster more contents like this, and it makes possible for the author to keep writing helpful tools and materials for the community.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.paypal.com/donate/?business=D58J5LFEERC3N&amp;no_recurring=0&amp;item_name=These+donations+make+it+possible+for+me+to+continue+writing+new+and+useful+content+for+our+community%F0%9F%98%89+Thank+you%21%E2%9D%A4%EF%B8%8F%F0%9F%A5%B3&amp;currency_code=USD"> <button class="btn btn-primary" type="button"> Donate via PayPal 💵 </button> </a></p>
</section>
<section id="revolut" class="level3">
<h3 class="anchored" data-anchor-id="revolut">Revolut</h3>
<p>You can send money via Swift Payment with the following bank and Swift details:</p>
<pre><code>Recipient: Pedro Duarte Faria
BIC/SWIFT Code: REVOSGS2
Account number: 6124512226
Name and address of the bank: Revolut Technologies Singapore Pte. Ltd, 6 Battery Road, Floor 6-01, 049909, Singapore, Singapore
Corresponding BIC: CHASGB2L</code></pre>
<p>If you do have a Revolut account, you can scan the following QR code:</p>
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<p><a href="http://revolut.me/pedroduartefaria"> <button class="btn btn-primary" type="button"> Revolut QR Code 💵 </button> </a></p>
</section>
</section>
<section id="about-this-book" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="about-this-book">About this book</h2>
<p>This an open (i.e., open-source), technical and introductory book for the <a href="https://ziglang.org/">Zig programming language</a>, which is a new general purpose, and low-level programming language for building optimal and robust software.</p>
<p>Official repository of the book: <a href="https://github.com/pedropark99/zig-book" class="uri">https://github.com/pedropark99/zig-book</a>.</p>
<p>This book is designed for both beginners and experienced developers. It explores the exciting world of Zig through small and simple projects (in a similar style to the famous “Python Crash Course” book from Eric Matthes). Some of these projects are: a Base64 encoder/decoder, a HTTP Server and an image filter.</p>
<p>As you work through the book, you will learn:</p>
<ul>
<li>The syntax of the language, and how it compares to C, C++ and Rust.</li>
<li>Data structures, memory allocators, filesystem and I/O.</li>
<li>Optionals as a new paradigm to handle nullability.</li>
<li>How to test and debug a Zig application.</li>
<li>Errors as values, and how to handle them.</li>
<li>How to build C and Zig code with the build system that is embedded into the language.</li>
<li>Zig interoperability with C.</li>
<li>Parallelism with threads and SIMD.</li>
<li>And more.</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="about-the-author" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="about-the-author">About the author</h2>
<p>Pedro Duarte Faria has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Federal University of Ouro Preto - Brazil. Currently, he is a Senior Data Engineer at <a href="https://www.dsm-firmenich.com">DSM-Firmenich</a><a href="#fn1" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref1" role="doc-noteref"><sup>1</sup></a>, and a Databricks Certified Associate Developer for Apache Spark 3.0.</p>
<p>The author has more than 4 years of experience in the data industry, developing data products, pipelines, reports and analysis for research institutions and some of the largest companies in the Brazilian financial sector, such as the BMG Bank, Sodexo and Pan Bank.</p>
<p>But Pedro is also a passionate software developer who loves to learn and teach about programming. Although Pedro uses many different languages in his work, he is specialized in the R programming language, and have given several lectures and courses about it, inside graduate centers (such as PPEA-UFOP<a href="#fn2" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref2" role="doc-noteref"><sup>2</sup></a>), in addition to federal and state organizations (such as FJP-MG<a href="#fn3" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref3" role="doc-noteref"><sup>3</sup></a>).</p>
<p>Personal Website: <a href="https://pedro-faria.netlify.app/" class="uri">https://pedro-faria.netlify.app/</a></p>
<p>Linkedin: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-faria-a68140209/" class="uri">https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-faria-a68140209/</a></p>
<p>Mastodon: <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@pedropark99">@pedropark99@fosstodon.org</a></p>
<p>Twitter (X): <a href="https://twitter.com/PedroPark9">@PedroPark9</a></p>
</section>
<section id="license" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="license">License</h2>
<p>Copyright © 2025 Pedro Duarte Faria. This book is licensed by the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License</a><a href="#fn4" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref4" role="doc-noteref"><sup>4</sup></a>.</p>
<p><img src="Figures/creative-commoms-88x31.png" class="img-fluid" width="88"></p>
</section>
<section id="book-compilation-metadata" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="book-compilation-metadata">Book compilation metadata</h2>
<p>This book was compiled using the following versions of <a href="https://ziglang.org">Zig</a> and <a href="https://quarto.org">Quarto</a>:</p>
<ul>
<li>System version: Linux, 6.12.21-4-MANJARO, NA, x86_64.</li>
<li>Zig version: 0.16.0-dev.1326+2e6f7d36b.</li>
<li>Quarto version: 1.7.33.</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="book-citation" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="book-citation">Book citation</h2>
<p>You can use the following BibTex entry to cite this book:</p>
<pre><code>@book{pedro2024,
    author = {Pedro Duarte Faria},
    title = {Introduction to Zig},
    subtitle = {a project-based book},
    month = {October},
    edition = {1},
    year = {2024},
    address = {Belo Horizonte},
    url = {https://github.com/pedropark99/zig-book}
}</code></pre>
</section>
<section id="corresponding-author-and-maintainer" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="corresponding-author-and-maintainer">Corresponding author and maintainer</h2>
<p>Pedro Duarte Faria</p>
<p>Contact: <a href="mailto:pedropark99@gmail.com">pedropark99@gmail.com</a></p>
<p>Personal website: <a href="https://pedro-faria.netlify.app/" class="uri">https://pedro-faria.netlify.app/</a></p>
</section>
<section id="acknowledgments" class="level2 unnumbered">
<h2 class="unnumbered anchored" data-anchor-id="acknowledgments">Acknowledgments</h2>
<p>This book is also a product of many conversations and exchanges that we had with different people from the Zig community. I (Pedro Duarte Faria) am incredibly grateful for these conversations, and also, for some direct contributions that we had. Below we have a list of the people involved (name of the person with their usename in GitHub):</p>
<p>Calin Martinconi (@martinconic), Steffen Roller (@sroller), Chris Boesch (@chrboesch), Lv Sihan (@Pokryton), saurabh sharma. (@esskayesss), slackline (@slackline), Markus Kurz (@kurz-m), Rubin Simons (@rubin55), Bruno (@PoorlyDefinedBehaviour), Ilia Choly (@icholy), Korri Katti (@KorryKatti), Vedang Manerikar (@vedang), Tommaso Ricci (@Zorgatone), Primo Sabatini (@primos63), Santiago Fernandez (@santif), Hamza Wahed (@HamzaWahed), mwilbur (@mwilbur), Dima Budaragin (@dbud), Jorge Jímenez (@jorge-j1m), Alexander (@alexwheezy), Maarten Coopens (@maarteNNNN), Niklas Johansson (@Raphexion), glystik (@glystik), Michael Lynch (@mtlynch), Yashank (@stickyburn), <em>blf</em> (@bengtfrost), Karl Gaissmaier (@gaissmai), Ben Scheirman (@subdigital), Ariel Otilibili (@ariel-anieli), kitajusSus (@kitajusSus), Luciogi (@Luciogi), Anish Gowda (@anishgowda21)</p>


</section>
</section>
<section id="footnotes" class="footnotes footnotes-end-of-document" role="doc-endnotes">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn1"><p><a href="https://www.dsm-firmenich.com" class="uri">https://www.dsm-firmenich.com</a><a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
<li id="fn2"><p><a href="https://ppea.ufop.br/" class="uri">https://ppea.ufop.br/</a><a href="#fnref2" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
<li id="fn3"><p><a href="http://fjp.mg.gov.br/" class="uri">http://fjp.mg.gov.br/</a><a href="#fnref3" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
<li id="fn4"><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" class="uri">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a><a href="#fnref4" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
</ol>
</section>

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